


keys to the cage (and the devil to pay)

by HearJessRoar



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Injury, Caleb Covington Being a Bastard, Character Death, Curses, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Violence, drink up me hearties yo ho, the pirates of the caribbean au no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29188578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HearJessRoar/pseuds/HearJessRoar
Summary: Julie Molina has always thought it would be rather exciting to meet a pirate.Unfortunately, she's right."Julie, Julie Patterson, I'm a maid here in the governor's household," she bluffs. And she wishes that Luke's name hadn't been the first that she'd come up with, because the long-haired pirate's eyebrows raise immediately."Luke got married?" he says, sounding oddly betrayed.His blonde companion looks equally gutted. "He didn't even tell us."
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters & Willie, Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Bobby | Trevor Wilson/Reggie Peters, Flynn/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 279
Kudos: 546





	1. Chapter 1

She's had this dream before.

The mist over the grey sea and the way that she can taste the salt in the air, it's all so familiar that her heart aches with it; she knows how this story goes.

The hem of her skirt is damp and she knows her father will playfully chastise her for it later, but she doesn't care because a dark shape is emerging from the water.

It bobs on the current, down below the line of the dock, a bundle of cloth and seawater, floating closer.

And this is the part she remembers in pieces.

The realization that she's looking at an unconscious boy, barely clinging to a broken door.

Her shriek for help as her shoes slap against the sodden boards of the dock, creaking under her as she hikes her skirts and runs for the shore, for her father.

Her kind, beloved father diving into the murky depths just as the boy slides from his precarious spot and dips below the surface.

Shoves him dripping wet onto the boards as she falls to her knees to face a boy about her age, not a day over seventeen if that, a glint of gold around his pallid neck.

And before her father can climb back up, she realizes what that little coin means, what this boy is, but he looks so small and weak and half-dead, she can't let them hang him, she _can't_ , not if their only evidence is a tiny bit of pirate's gold around his throat like the noose that'll surely find him one day.

And she doesn't remember if it quite went this way when it happened but the way she remembers it, she tugs the chain over his head and as she pulls away, a clammy cold hand wraps its near-dead fingers around her wrist and a choking gasp filled with cruel ocean water rents the air.

She soothes him, her hand brushing against his cheek in the most improper way but she can't help it, it's instinct.

_"Who are you?"_

She knows her voice trembled more than this.

Every syllable a great effort, he looks up at her and says, _"Luke. Luke...Patterson,"_

And Julie Molina wakes in the dead of night.


	2. Chapter 2

She sleeps fitfully after that, tossing in her bed like ocean waves. When the first watery streaks of morning sunlight pour through her window, Julie is already on her feet.

Beneath the lacey things in her top drawer, under the false bottom that Carlos helped her build, there it sits.

So innocently for what it is.

The gold of a dead man, were it to be found in his possession.

Julie picks it up, holds it to the light, and wonders if the little skull really is grinning at her the way it seems to be.

She feels mocked.

Slipping the chain over her head, she waits, fidgeting. It's just a coin on tiny gold links but to her…

To her it's the gossamer thread of Luke Patterson's life, dangling against the hollow of her throat.

And what a burden to bear, the responsibility of keeping a secret that they’ve never discussed. She does not know if he’s aware that she took it from him. Two years she’s known him, and it feels like something someone should probably broach at some point, but perhaps it’s too late to admit to her petty theft. Julie has never seen Luke Patterson angry, and regardless of her intention to save his life, she worries that he’ll be furious with her deception.

Theft is still theft, regardless.

She almost wonders if he’d admire her for it; he is a pirate, after all.

Presumably. Again, she’s never asked. It would have been rude.

She wants to see him.

The knock on her door startles her even though she's been expecting it, as she does every morning.

Hastily she tucks the necklace down the front of her sleeping clothes and calls out to let her father enter.

Raymond Molina is a tall man, and jovial, even at sunrise. He's dressed to the nines already, and greets her as the maids enter behind him, leaning down to kiss her forehead as he has every morning since she can remember. Her whole life has been defined by her father’s love.

And despite how heavily that coin rests against her ribcage, something in Julie’s chest relaxes.

"You keep waking up before the dawn like you do, people will say I'm a terrible father for not letting my daughter get her rest," he scolds, brushing back her hair from her face. Julie smiles at him.

“I’ve brought you a gift,” he says. And her heart sinks, because she knows what happens when her father brings her gifts.

He wants to talk to her about finding a husband again.

And the thing is that she knows her father doesn’t want her to get married, knows that if he had his way that she would stay an old spinster in his house for the rest of his days. But he worries for her, because as a woman she has no money to call her own and if something were to happen to him and Carlos, all she would be left with is whatever jewelry she could hide in her skirts.

Being the governor is not necessarily a dangerous job, but it’s not without its risks, and she is well aware of that.

Ray knows that it’s not fair, and she knows that he hates the way things are, and if he could he would change the world with his bare hands to make it better for her, for all the women trapped in the society circles the way that they are. He’d hated it for her mother, and he hates it for her.

He turns and gestures to one of her maids to hand him a large dress box. Julie gives him a long suffering look as she removes the lid. “You really shouldn’t be spoiling me this way…” she trails off, her words swallowed as she sees the familiar blue fabric folded carefully in the paper. “Are you sure?” she asks, brushing her fingertips over the embroidered flowers on the neckline, just as she did as a child.

Ray nods, his eyes suspiciously bright. “She would want you to have it,” he says, voice thick.

Her mother’s favorite dress, the one she wore as often as possible, the light blue with the complicated needlework she’d done herself when she was about Julie’s age, a fresh faced young woman of twenty ready to start her marriage so many years ago. The dress that Julie remembers so well, her mother holding her baby brother in one arm and Julie’s fingers with the other hand.

It’s a simple skirt and somewhat outdated now, but Julie’s heart aches with how badly she wants to put it on. She pulls it entirely out of its box, and shakes it out.

Her mother’s perfume still clings to the neckline.

~

Across town, in the broiling heat of the smithy, one Luke Patterson wipes the sweat from his brow.

He’s got an order to deliver later, and he’s in desperate need of a trip to the wash pail first, because he knows that nobody in the forge smells pleasant after crafting swords, and nobody in the fancy houses he visits wants to see him in all his sooty glory at this time of the morning.

He strips off his shirt and heads to the back of the building, fumbling for the new cake of soap he knows should be sitting on the barrel at the door. He grabs a mostly clean linen off the line, and dips his hands in the bucket to wet his face, scrubbing harshly to get the grime off as best he can.

There’s a giggle, and before he can register that, a familiar voice says, “You’re bound to take your face clean off one of these days, washing it rough like that.”

Luke blinks soapy suds from his eyes, stinging as he opens them in surprise. “Miss Molina-” he says, doing his best to rinse his face with handfuls of water as fast as he can. When he looks up again, she’s standing there, her face just the prettiest shade of pink he’s ever seen, her head tilted as she gazes steadily at him.

Her dark hair is done up in the elaborate style he’s become accustomed to during his two years in Port Royal, but tiny tendrils are springing free at her hairline, curling around her ears in the humidity.

She’s as much of a vision as she was the day she held him on the dock.

“What are you doing here so early?” he asks, trying to slick his sopping hair back from his eyes. Julie’s eyes follow the motion of his arm.

“I dreamt about you,” she says, and Luke nearly swallows his tongue. “About the day we met.”

He licks his lip and tries not to smile. “Miss Molina, you keep saying things like that, and people will _talk,_ ”

She narrows her eyes at him. “How many times must I tell you to call me Julie?”

This time he does smile. “At least once more, Miss Molina.”

And she rolls her eyes, a completely unbecoming action for a young woman of her station. It makes Luke’s heart beat double time. 

Julie Molina has his heart and soul in the palm of her delicate hands, and he will do everything in his power to make sure she never knows.

Being taken in by the governor and set up as a blacksmith aside, Luke has no compunctions about his station in life. He’s poor, and even if he weren’t what he was, a blacksmith just barely above poverty would a rotten choice of a husband make. And that’s assuming she would ever agree to marry him in the first place. Which she wouldn’t, because she’s a lady of means and title, and he’s a grubby nobody who washed ashore and relied on the charity of those above him to even survive.

After all, a bird may love a fish, but where would they live?

Something else catches his notice.

“Is that your mother’s dress?”

And Julie’s smile is sad and soft as she smooths the skirt, one that Luke had seen only a handful of times before Rose’s untimely passing the year before. “Yes. My father gave it to me this morning. What do you think?” she gives a small twirl in it, the hem flaring out just the slightest bit, and Luke can’t help his own mournful smile.

“It suits you. She would love that you have it,” he says, and hopes he isn’t overstepping.

Rose Molina had been as much of a mother to him in the short time he’d known her as his own mother back home. He misses them both, with an ache in his heart that pulls in two different ways.

Julie’s eyes are straying elsewhere, and with a horrified jolt, Luke realizes that he’s nowhere near properly dressed in front of a young society woman. He squeaks in the most undignified way, and holds the linen up over his chest.

“I’m so sorry-”

Julie is laughing, her face flushed pink across the nose. “I was enjoying the view,” she says and Luke’s cheeks _burn_. “Besides, _I’m_ the one who interrupted _you_ , there’s no need to get so bashful.”

“Miss Molina-”

“ _Julie_ ,” she insists.

“Not while I’m shirtless, you’re not,” he mutters, hiking the linen higher, up to his neck.

There’s footsteps down the back of the alley and Luke’s heart sinks to his stomach, watching idly as his day is about to get so much more humiliating.

“Julie, we have to get going-Hi Luke, where’s your clothes?- They’ll realize we’re missing and Luke honestly where’s your shirt?”

Carlos Molina is one of his favorite people on the earth.

But not right now.

Julie’s flushed face is hidden in her hands as Carlos looks at him, very clearly fighting off a grin. Luke grits his teeth. “Your lovely sister has decided that my bathing time comes second to her conversational whims,” he says, hoping that Julie isn’t hurt by it.

By the way she peeks through her fingers at him, and pointedly rolls her eyes again, he’s probably safe.

Carlos eyeballs his sister. “People are going to say things about you one day, and I’m not going to be able to stop them,” he says, offering his arm. He’s gotten tall in the time Luke has known him, a wiry boy of sixteen these days.

“We have that ceremony for that one Admiral being promoted today,” he tells Luke. “If we don’t get going, I’ll have to explain to our father why it took us this long to return a book across town.”

Carlos helped Julie come see him, Luke realizes with a start. He’s a good young man, if not a little mischievous, and he loves his sister to the point of illogic. Luke’s heart warms in the cage of his ribs.

He’d never expected such care from the people who had rescued him from the unforgiving ocean, not in a thousand years.

It probably helped that he’d never been branded as a pirate as he should have been, and that his only evidence to his true nature seemed to have been lost at sea that day. His stomach twists at the thought.

As he watches them retreat, Carlos ushering his sister with brisk footsteps back to the proper street, and Julie looking back at him, her hand waving goodbye over her shoulder, Luke wishes that it could stay this way.

He has a sinking feeling that it won’t.

And he’s very right, because unbeknownst to him, all the way down at the docks, there’s trouble on the wind.

A heavily booted foot sets down on the sodden boards, striding smoothly from the mast of the rapidly sinking boat he’s been perched atop for the last several minutes. He doesn’t seem to notice or care about the spectacle that he’s making of himself as the boat disappears entirely below the waterline, lost forever without so much as a dignified burble.

But then, he’s quite used to being a spectacle.

Captain Reginald Peters squints at the little town of Port Royal, and smirks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're gettin to it yall
> 
> so this is potc _inspired_. im not rewriting curse of the black pearl bc that's _boring_ but hey bear with me
> 
> lemme know if you like it, we're gonna get to some of the meat and bones with the next one


	3. Chapter 3

Julie stifles a yawn beneath her fan. Beside her, Carlos attempts to step on her foot.

"I didn't sleep well, leave me alone," she hisses, covering her mouth with the painted paper.

"Mhmm," Carlos whispers back, "too busy dreaming about _Luke_ -"

Julie snaps the fan closed, swings her arm down, and smacks him in the belly with it. Before he can even react, the fan is back open at her face, fluttering away innocently.

Carlos winces, but she didn't hit him hard enough for him to cause a scene, and by the grin on his face, he's taking her reaction as confirmation of his teasing.

The ceremony ends with fanfare, and Julie honestly isn't sure if the man is being promoted _to_ Admiral or _from_ Admiral, but she gives him a perfunctory congratulations anyway when he approaches to speak with her father, his craggy face prideful as he looks down at her.

Julie is not fond of military men.

Except one.

"Miss Molina, I see that you're determined to outshine the sun today."

She can't help her smile. When she turns around, it's to see Nick in his uniform, standing at attention.

"Aren't you as shiny as a new penny?" she teases.

She's known Nick nearly her whole life, and once, what feels like a lifetime ago, considered him a possibility as a choice in husband, if only because she got along with him well.

Nick is a good man, and handsome, and if a certain blacksmith hadn't washed ashore, Julie wonders if she could have grown to love him in another lifetime.

As it is, he's a dear friend, and she's very pleased to see him.

“Care to accompany me for a quiet stroll?” he asks. “Master Molina chaperoning, of course,” he says, tossing a friendly wink to Carlos, who looks relieved to have an excuse to escape the too-polite conversations that await him should he stay.

She nods, her smile fond.

It’s a lovely day, and a brief excursion after being forced into standing still for so long just to honor a cranky old man sounds like heaven. It’s been so long since she’s been to the fort, and she misses the views afforded to her from this elevation. She would like to at least see them for a bit before being forced back to the mansion.

The cliffs of Port Royal make for a very picturesque backdrop to their walk, and Nick doesn’t reprimand her for walking as close as she likes to the edges of them. Carlos calls out to her several times to tell her to be careful, but Julie has done this her whole life and never so much as fumbled.

Not until today.

~

Captain Reginald Peters, Reggie to his friends and enemies, has had a very long day after a very long journey. He’s starting to wonder if the people in this town have ever even seen a pirate before in their lives, because most of them just avert their eyes as he passes. He even bribed the harbormaster into letting him onto the secured dock without too much of a fuss.

It was starting to take the fun out of piracy, if you asked him.

But mission accomplished, he’s found himself a very pretty ship, which should probably be guarded a whole lot better than it is, considering from what he can tell it’s new in the water. But everyone in a uniform seems to be up at the fort, some fancy to-do the distraction of the day. He wonders if whoever was supposed to be protecting this vessel has managed to just sneak off from their duties, because he knows if it were him, that’s exactly what he would do. If he were a suspicious man, and he is, he’d think it was a trap set specifically for sticky fingered pirates like him. 

And before he can ruminate on that any further, there’s a large splash behind him.

~

She can hear both Nick and Carlos screaming for her as the wind rushes past her head, and her last thought before she hits the water is that her mother’s dress is sure to be ruined.

~

He shucks off his coat and hat, drops them onto the dock, prays for his boots to dry out quickly after this, and dives.

~

_a pulse a call to arms a distress signal a medallion calling out to those who owe their blood to its whims_

~

She knows she lost consciousness during the fall, and the startle of the cold makes her gasp salty ocean water into her lungs. Her mind clouds with panic and her limbs refuse to budge as the current pulls at her legs, dragging her toward the rocky caves that litter the bottom of the cliffs.

She can’t think she can’t breathe she can’t move and all there is is _ocean ocean ocean_ in her eyes and in her throat and if she’s going to die today then at least she can go wearing her last reminder of her mother and that thought wraps around her soul like a warm hug and somehow impossibly like the arms around her waist-

She’s shoved above the sealine with a retching cough, her hands grasping immediately for her rescuer.

“Hey, hey now, you pull me under, we both drown, lassie, just calm down a moment-”

He’s dark haired is the first thing she notices, with kohl-lined eyes that speak of mischief and trouble. He’s in a rather good mood for someone fighting the current pulling at both of them, and as he forces her arms around his neck to free up both of his, she wonders where on earth this strange man has come from.

He swims them both back towards the docks, and as he does, she glimpses the back of his wrist as the cuff of his shirt is forced up his arm.

Branded into his skin is the P that marks him and all pirates like him. Her heart thuds in her chest.

“Up we get, lass, alright, here you go-” he holds her up to the dock with his hands on her waist and if this were any other situation, she might be mortified by the inappropriateness of the situation. As it is, she’s too busy hacking and gagging seawater out of her lungs to care too much for propriety.

The medallion swings loose from the neckline of her dress just as the man hauls himself onto the boards beside her. It glints, even in the mists of the ocean, and he seems compelled to reach for it.

Julie pulls away, gripping for the coin and scrambling backwards. The man levels her with a curious look.

“Now, where did you get that?” he asks. And before she can tell him to mind his business, the thundering footsteps of the militia interrupt her, and terror freezes her heart.

She can’t.

She _can’t._

Just like with Luke, her heart and morals won’t let her let this man swing from the gallows, not after he’s just pulled her from the depths. He’s a hero to her, this odd man in the middle of gathering his coat and hat like he’s unaware of death steadily coming towards him.

“Run.” Julie tries, a cough choking off her warning.

“Wha-”

“ _RUN,_ ” she gasps, her throat raw. She staggers to her feet and gives him a shove, away from the sounds of the militia, towards the ship, towards hiding and safety.

He seems to finally, _finally_ pick up on the hint, and as her father barrels down the dock towards her, the last she sees of her rescuer is the brim of his three-pointed hat disappearing belowdecks.

~

He’s very glad to have found the ship, but he’s only one man, and one man cannot crew a ship alone. Well, maybe, he _is_ Captain Reginald Peters, after all. But it would be difficult, even for him, and at heart he believes in many hands making light work, and he’s been on his own for _so long_ he’d really rather prefer having some company at least.

So after that odd little lass shoves him towards the ship and saves his life, because he figures from the conversation he can hear that she’s the governor’s daughter and many people would have been very upset if she’d died at the bottom of that cliff, _you’re very welcome, governor,_ he absolutely would have been hanged if he’d been caught.

And Reggie thinks on that, because any other society woman would have screamed and probably tried to tie the noose on him herself the second she’d figured out he was a pirate.

But not her.

Odd.

But he doesn’t have time to chew that over, because the sun will set soon, and if he saw what he thinks he saw around that girl’s neck, things are about to get mighty interesting for the sleepy little town of Port Royal.

So he saunters back into the main square, wondering how one would even begin to recruit a crew in such an upstanding community. Logically, there would have to be someone there with some bent morals and a thirst for treasure, that’s just statistics, innit?

And he wonders if he should try to get his sword sharpened while he’s here, because preventative maintenance hasn’t been very high on his to-do list these days, and then he thinks that he might as well just steal one if he’s going to take the risk of getting caught waiting for someone to work on it for him.

So a little bit of petty theft it is, just to keep the day interesting.

He nearly strides right past the blacksmith’s, the sign is so small and dingy. It can’t make for good business, the way it’s tucked back and grimy the way it is, even from the outside. He’s surprised that the proper people of Port Royal haven’t complained.

Backtracking, he slips inside the shop, and immediately comes face to face with a man as equally surprised to see him as Reggie is. He’s far too clean for a blacksmith, and his hair is long, but-

He squints. “Don’t I know you?”

The man’s eyes flicker behind him, and Reggie almost, almost turns around. But before he can, the man shoves him back out into the street.

Taken aback, Reggie barely has time to draw his sword before there’s a shiny new one in his face. He sighs, and rolls his eyes.

Upstanding citizens, god help him.

He parries, and steps all the way back, listening to the people in the street shriek as they bustle out of their way. The cobblestones are uneven under his feet, and he wishes that his sea legs would subside already, because his footwork and balance definitely aren’t quite ready for a swordfight today.

Oh well.

It occurs to him that the militia has them surrounded as their swords clash, the bite of steel renting the air. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid, and he grits his teeth. 

This prim and proper man with his silly little ponytail are starting to get on his nerves, and he wishes he could cut this charade already, but no. No, he has to do things _properly_ , even if this isn’t according to plan, and if he were any other sort of pirate he would absolutely give Luke up for what he is right now, in front of all these people.

But he’s not that type of pirate, and Luke is pulling his swings.

Two years has made a proper swordsman out of him, Reggie notes, just before there’s a crash of breaking glass and a sharp pain in his skull.

The last thing he knows is the clamp of manacles around his wrist.

~

Night sets, and Julie awakes to the sound of cannonfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im only doing this so fast bc i really really want to get to a particular couple of scenes tbh
> 
> how we feelin


	4. Chapter 4

Briefly, she wonders if she’ll ever be afforded a decent night’s sleep ever again. As she throws her robe on over her sleeping clothes, Julie is at least grateful that her father and brother are still at the fort.

She’d insisted that she was fine, and that she only wanted to rest after her tumble from the cliffs. And mercifully, neither of them seemed to have seen her pirate savior that afternoon.

But that leaves her in the house with the staff, who she cares for deeply but she knows in her heart that they will run as soon as they get a chance, and who can blame them when the cannonblasts rock the very foundations of her home?

Looking out the window, she finds with annoyance that she can’t see a damned thing, between the fog that’s rolled in over the town and the wisps and clouds and puffs of smoke from cannons and guns down below.

Not even the moon is visible over the harbor, and that more than anything fills her with fear.

What does the world become when even the moon looks away?

She trips into the hallway just as the front doors swing open and there they are.

Pirates come to raid the governor’s house, the richest house in town.

Her brain works overtime, because she’s a young lady in a rich house, and she’s heard stories of what pirates do with those sorts of variables, and that skulled medallion rests so heavily around her neck, like a pull, like a tug, like it _wants_ her to go downstairs to the men who are invading her home.

She’s the governor’s daughter, and right now, that’s a title she can’t afford to pay for with her life.

Julie swings into the first closet she can find, the sounds of pillaging running rampant through the house as the pirates steal everything not nailed down. In the dark of the bedroom, she can see the lamplight outside interrupted as they scamper back and forth through her house like it’s a treasure cave.

The door creaks open, and Julie cowers back into the linens. The shelves bite into her spine as footsteps approach her hiding place.

“Are you sure?”

“I can sense it, it’s calling to me-”

“...’lex, I don’t think he’s here, he’d have come out by now…”

She takes in a sharp breath through her nose as the closet door swings open.

“Parlay,” she snaps immediately.

The two pirates that have found her look taken aback. They also look rather...nonthreatening...for pirates.

“There’s a girl in here,” says one, his long brown hair held back from his face with a faded blue bandana across his forehead.

“I can see that, thank you.” says his taller companion. “But it’s definitely in here, I can feel it,” he reaches around her, and shuffles through the linens. His coat smells of salt.

Julie feels a little bit ignored.

“I said, _parlay_ ,” she repeats.

The one in the linen cupboard with her glances down from where he’s searching the top shelf. “We heard you. Listen, have you seen a gold coin, about this big-” he gestures with his fingers, “-maybe on a necklace?”

“You’re supposed to take me to your captain,” she says, her brain a little bit frazzled.

“We’re busy,” replies the one leaning on the doorframe. “Have you seen the gold or not?”

Julie snorts and hauls the chain out from under her robe. The pirate next to her stills his search of the cupboard. “This vile thing, this is what you’re looking for?”

He looks down at her, hair the color of gold swinging in front of his eyes. “Where did you get that?” he breathes, his eyes straying to the coin as it dangles from her fingers. She has to wonder that it’s the second time she’s been asked that today alone. “Who are you?”

Julie swallows, because despite the fact that they haven’t laid a finger on her, these are still pirates, and she apparently has the thing they want, and by revealing that little tidbit so fast, she wonders if she’s just doomed herself to being gutted in this closet for a trinket. And she still can’t admit to being the daughter of an official; they’ll kidnap her for ransom.

So she lies.

Badly.

"Julie, Julie Patterson, I'm a maid here in the governor's household," she bluffs. And she wishes that Luke's name hadn't been the first that she'd come up with, because the long-haired pirate's eyebrows raise immediately.

"Luke got married?" he says, sounding oddly betrayed.

His blonde companion looks equally gutted. "He didn't even tell us."

And while that does confirm that Luke is indeed a pirate, she really, really regrets what she’s just said, because it’s embarrassing how much she likes his name after hers. But judging by their reactions, Luke’s name might be her best bet to protection, if they think she’s his wife.

The blonde has his face in his hands, stepping backwards as the other reaches out to him, rubbing a hand up and down his back. “He didn’t _tell me_ , and _she’s got the gold_ , I’m gonna kill him, Willie, I swear-”

Willie, his name apparently, makes shushing noises, still running his hand up and down the blonde’s arm. He turns to look at her very seriously while his companion scrubs at his face. “We assumed that Luke would be with the medallion,” he says, his brows furrowed with frustration and annoyance. “Your husband is bad at sticking to plans.”

Her heart jolts.

_your husband_

“-send a _letter_ at least, that’s all I ask before throwing a spanner in the plans-”

“Alex, shhh,” Willie says, rolling his eyes. “Look, here’s the rundown, Miss; we need Luke. Luke isn’t here. We can’t go back to our ship empty handed. Our captain wants Luke Patterson. You’re Luke Patterson’s wife. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Her heart sinks. “You’re going to kidnap me,” she says, her stomach dropping to her knees. Willie shakes his head frantically.

“I was thinking more like...an agreement. Rather than a kidnapping,” he chews on his lip, scuffing it more than the salty ocean air already has.

“We,” he says, gesturing between them. “will keep you as safe as we can, but we need to go. Right now. Our captain is _not_ a patient man when he sends for an errand. And if we return with no Luke...well. He won’t like it.”

Julie swallows. “You’re asking me to trust you, a pair of pirates who have broken into my home?”

Alex gives her a pained grin. “Yes.” he says plainly.

And heaven help her, if it keeps this town standing, then she’ll do it.

~

Luke watches as his adopted home is rocked with cannonfire, people screaming in the streets. It was bad enough that he’d had to duel Reggie today, he grumbles despairingly in his mind as he grabs one of his newest swords from the rack. He hopes it’s one of the properly tempered ones, and not one that his so-called Master cut with inferior materials as he was wont to do.

So much for springing Reggie from prison when no one was looking tonight, he thinks as he dashes into the street.

He doesn’t recognize these pirates, and as such he doesn’t feel much remorse when he kicks one in the back to send him sprawling down the dusty street. He’d rather avoid gutting anybody if he can help it, but some of them seem to really be wanting for a good stabbing, if the way they’re terrorizing the townspeople is anything to go by.

A glimpse of dark hair from the corner of his eye, and he turns his back when he shouldn’t. The last thing he sees before being clocked over the head by _something_ is Julie Molina being led away by a pair of _very familiar_ men.

“....’lex?” he mumbles, blood in his teeth as he hits the cobblestones.

~

Julie’s heart is in her throat as the foggy night breaks open to reveal a ship moored just offshore. Their little dinghy rocks in the water as Willie and Alex row towards it, the dip of the oars just barely audible under the chaos behind them. The ship looms like a god in the shadows. Underneath the low clouds and the darkness, she can barely make out the lettering carved across the stern.

_Sunset’s Curve_

She breathes deeply, and Willie gives her a reassuring look as he helps her to the rudimentary steps embedded in the hull. She’s still in her nightgown, and the cool of the night bites into her skin.

The deck is crawling with pirates.

It _is_ a pirate ship, she thinks hysterically, trying to school her face into something blank. Every single pair of eyes dart towards her and she crosses her arms. Willie and Alex stand to either side of her, Willie’s fingers gripped loosely around her upper arm, and Alex’s hand on the small of her back. 

“I wasn’t aware we were taking hostages on this little excursion,” says someone, a tall man with a cat-o-nine whip curled around his back. _The bosun,_ her mind supplies helpfully.

“She invoked the right of parlay,” Willie says, chewing his lip again. “So if you don’t mind, Dante, we’ll be needing to take her to the captain-”

“The captain is right here, William. No need to get antagonistic.”

And Julie gets her first glimpse of Captain Caleb Covington.

He’s dressed like a fop, is the first thing she thinks. Or more like a dandy, she amends. Either way, it’s an awful lot of indigo for a pirate. The thought of how much the dye alone would cost is enough to make even her head spin.

_certainly thinks highly of himself, decked out in that color and sailing under a pirate flag_

Willie and Alex both stand up straighter, and Julie can feel Willie’s fingers trembling on her bicep. She can’t blame him; this man reminds her of a hungry predator, circling its food. A remarkable feat, since he’s barely walked ten steps.

“Now boys, I know it’s been awhile,” Covington says, tsking his tongue. “But I’m sure you know that Luke doesn’t look like _this,_ ” he gestures dismissively towards her.

The crew laughs and Julie feels revulsion coil in her gut.

“We couldn’t find him, but-” Alex starts, and cuts himself off. Willie continues for him.

“This is his wife. I thought that maybe if we took her then-”

And Covington interrupts, his eyebrow raised so condescendingly at Willie that even Julie shrinks back. “You thought that you could just grab a substitute instead of what I asked you to do.”

Alex’s hand on her back and its reassuring presence disappear as he moves forward, half a step like he can’t help it. Covington levels him with a look, and Julie is startled to see the bare-faced hatred burning in Alex’s eyes as he glares at his captain.

Covington seems amused by it. “Well, luckily for you both, this will work out splendidly, I think. If our dear, dear Lucas finds his wife missing, he might be just a tad bit more inclined to agree to my little bargain after all,” he reaches out and pats Willie’s cheek and Julie can feel the tension grow in his demeanor next to her. “Very good, William.”

“Take her to the brig,” he says, beginning to stride away with a swish of his coat. He pauses, and turns like he’s forgotten something. “Oh, and William?” Covington says, his voice light in a vicious way. Julie shivers.

“Aye?” Willie replies, looking apprehensive. His grip on her arm shifts nervously.

“The next time you think about making decisions on your captain’s behalf,” he says, nodding meaningfully to the bosun, who unsheathes his sword. It glints dangerously. “I’d like you to remember the look on Mr. Mercer’s face at this moment.”

The bosun plunges his sword into Alex’s chest, and Julie screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	5. Chapter 5

_Two years ago…_

_...ish._

The sun shines down hot against the deck of the _Sunset’s Curve_ , reflecting off the blue blue sea like glass as Captain Reginald Peters welcomes his newest recruit aboard. The man is older than most on the ship, but they’ve all heard tell of Caleb Covington, a man with stories enough for a whole mess of legends.

He seems every bit the figure he’s made out to be, in his expensive clothing and the way he carries himself without a hint of hesitancy.

“Good to have you,” Reggie says, shaking the man’s hand. Caleb gives him a smile with nothing behind it.

At the helm, one Luke Patterson squints down, and shivers.

~

Caleb brings with him a boy with haunted eyes.

His name is Willie, and the way that he stares longingly at the sky makes Luke nervous. He’s unblinking, and quiet, and looks like he’s glimpsed into the kraken’s maw and seen unspeakable things there.

Alex takes to him immediately.

Luke watches the previously steady first mate trip himself into circles, trying to draw those haunted eyes from their shell. And when Willie laughs for the first time, Luke can see why.

Alex lights up like he’s been handed the keys to the kingdom, and Luke thinks, _ah. I see._

~

“Immortality,” Caleb promises. “A chance to sail, forever.”

“What about the rest of the crew?” asks Reggie, tracing a finger over the scarred wood of the rail.

“I can’t make this offer to just anybody,” Caleb says, something dangerous in his voice. “You, Luke, Alex. That’s it.”

“You want me to betray my crew?”

And Caleb smiles like a knife.

“Why not? They’re about to betray _you_.”

~

Reggie watches, the palm trees rustling behind him on this godforsaken deserted island, as Caleb sails away with his ship.

He’s got a pistol with one shot, a compass that only leads to his heart’s desire, and a longshot of a plan.

He just prays that Luke can stick to it.

~

“You betrayed Reggie, you betray me now, too?” Luke says, his voice dangerously low.

“Didn’t see you protesting too much when we sailed off.” Alex snaps, shoving Luke in the chest. Behind him, Willie stares with sad eyes, Caleb’s hand on his shoulder. The moon glints, and Luke winces as his oldest friend is reduced to barely more than clinging flesh and bone in the moonlight. A skeleton of a man where familiarity and safety and _brotherhood_ once stood.

“And what’s it gotten you?” Luke spits, shoving Alex right back. “All his promises of immortality, what have you become?”

“If you wouldn’t mind getting on with it, Mr. Mercer,” Caleb interrupts, inspecting the nails on his other hand. “I’m dreadfully tired of watching this petty slap fight.”

Alex nods, hatred burning in his painfully bright eyes. Luke knows it’s not for him, and allows himself to be escorted to the dinghy.

The weight of the medallion that Alex has just shoved into his shirt sits heavy like lead.

~

_Now._

“How long have you been together?” Julie asks softly, careful to not disturb Willie, sleeping with his head on Alex’s thigh. Alex has his fingers buried in Willie’s hair, combing gently through it.

The brig is damp and smells like decay, which she expected for a cage in the dank belowdecks of a ship. It doesn’t make it any easier to stomach, but at least she has company.

They’re supposed to be guarding her, Caleb’s little hostage, but she knows that neither of them is what they appear to be. 

And if she hadn’t known that already, she certainly does now, with the way that hot, angry tears ran in rivulets down Willie’s face, Alex’s screams of agony splitting the night air as Willie pulled the bosun’s sword from his sternum.

Not a single other member of the crew so much as looked twice at them, as she stood horrified and frozen there on the deck.

She hadn't understood exactly what was happening until a sobbing Willie held Alex close to him, Alex's head tucked under his chin

- _imsorryimsorryiloveyouholdonimsorry_ -

blood staining his faded shirt even as the gory hole in Alex’s chest knitted itself together while Alex grit his teeth in pain.

He isn’t dead, and that should terrify her.

But it doesn’t.

She’s as close to the bars as she can get, Alex with his back against them on the other side.

“Awhile,” Alex murmurs back. Moonlight filters in through the cannonport, and everytime it shifts over his skin, all that is left are bits of skin and sinew on bone. It’s disconcerting, and more than once he’s turned to her with a grinning skull instead of a face. The sight makes Julie feel sick, but she can’t help but be touched by how this cursed soul cares for the man using him as a pillow.

“Why isn’t he...like you?” she can’t bring herself to say it. Alex smiles, a little ruefully.

“Can’t curse someone with no soul,” he says, tucking a lock of hair behind Willie’s ear. At her wide eyes, he shakes his head. “It’s not my story to tell, but...sometimes, people will do anything to make the hurt go away. Even if it means a deal with the devil.”

“Is Covington in possession of his soul, then?” she asks, swallowing hard. Alex nods.

“I did this,” he says, reaching out to graze the moonlight with his fingers, flesh melting away. “On purpose. Willie isn’t immortal and Caleb...he’s vindictive. I’ll gladly take any punishment he wants to dole out if it spares Willie from the same. But it comes at a cost.”

He stares at the place where his fingertips should be, white bone glinting in the cool night air. “The longer I’m like this, the more I lose of myself. And I love him, but-”

Willie shifts and Alex cuts off, making soothing noises. Willie settles again.

“But?” Julie prompts, enthralled and on the precipice of heartbreak for this man.

Alex’s eyes are sad. “But it’s like...when you stand in a sunbeam pouring in through a window on a winter morning. It’s bright and it’s almost warm, but it’s not like standing outside in the summer sun. It’s less. And all I want is to love him with my whole heart again.”

The creaking and settling of the ship is the only sound as Julie desperately tries to stem her silent tears.

Alex is still trailing his fingers over Willie’s slack face when she regains her composure.

She heaves a deep sigh. "I was hoping that a captain supposedly as gentlemanly as Covington would at least give a lady better accommodations than this," she says, her voice still thick despite her attempt for levity.

Alex traces Willie’s browbone with his thumb, the moonlight cleaving his other arm of its flesh. "This is part of tormenting Luke. Caleb wants him to see that his wife has suffered in his stead. He’s a petty bastard like that."

And Julie’s stomach drops at the reminder of her lie, of why she’s here. She can’t cop to it now; if she does, and Covington finds out, he’ll kill her without a second’s hesitation. Her deception is both her downfall, and the only thing keeping her alive.

“How does this happen?” she reaches out, touches the moonlight like he did.

Alex stares into a distance that isn’t there. “On the Isla de Muerta, there is a chest of gold. Cortez’s cursed treasure, they call it. You take a single coin from that chest, you’re punished for that greed. Food doesn’t satisfy. Your thirst is unquenchable. And soon...the only thing you’re able to feel is pain. But you’re not afforded the luxury of dying,” he sounds so far away. 

She shifts against the bars, reaches out for his shoulder, and pauses, considering. The damp of the cell has soaked into her nightgown, and she shivers, her fingers hovering just above his coat. They’ve promised to get her more appropriate clothing for the ship as soon as they can, but for tonight, it’s too risky to push Covington any further than they already have. 

She still doesn’t know how well she trusts their word, but what choice does she have at this point? She’ll gladly take her chances with these two than anyone on deck. Julie rests her fingers on his shoulder.

Alex looks back at her, appreciation in his eyes as he pats her hand once. He continues, sounding a little less like he’s drowning in his own thoughts.

“Caleb doesn’t tell you that part. He makes you feel special, like you're chosen just for this purpose. He takes you to the island, promises you immortality, and you take your gold. Caleb took his years ago. He doesn’t care; he likes feeling nothing. And he wants a crew to sail with him forever. Luke turned him down, and insulted him in the process. That’s why he wants to punish him. This,” Alex pulls the medallion out from beneath his shirt, where he had stashed it before leaving the governor’s mansion. “is Caleb’s coin. He can’t sense it on me, because I’ve got mine in my pocket, just like always. I gave this one to Luke...right before I shoved him into a dinghy with no oars.”

Tears begin to drip steadily off of Alex’s chin.

He doesn’t seem to notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one of my favorite chapters with one of my favorite lines and woo boy a lot of exposition anyway comment?


	6. Chapter 6

Luke wakes to the midmorning sun on his face and a splitting ache in the back of his skull. His mouth tastes like copper, and as he rolls onto his belly, he can’t for the life of him remember how he ended up in the dusty cobblestoned street.

He’s not a drunk by any means, so blacking out in the street after being tossed out of the tavern would certainly be a new one for him. He touches the back of his head with a wince, and all at once it floods back.

_Sunset’s Curve._

Alex and Willie.

_Julie._

His breath catches in his chest as he gets to his feet. Alex and Willie leading Julie away, Alex and Willie who he knew would be there for _him,_ he doesn’t understand what they would want with her and for a moment-

-just this one terrible moment-

Luke imagines that he’s truly been betrayed, really and honestly been double-crossed, but _no_ he refuses to believe it.

Something else must have happened.

His first instinct is to go to Governor Molina, to console him and beg for any answers that he has, but no no no he can’t, he’ll draw attention to himself and that’s the last thing he needs right now.

He needs to sneak away from town as quietly as possible.

Well, as possible as it’s going to be with Reggie in tow.

~

Captain Reginald Peters lounges in his cell, the straw covered floor barely insulating his back from the cold brick below. He sways his boot to a tune that only he can hear, and thinks about how the closest he’d been to his ship in more than two years, he’d been locked in a cage and unable to go to her.

He’d practically been able to hear her cries, could feel the way she’s been mistreated with Caleb at the helm for too long, the way he doesn’t know how to treat Reggie’s pride and joy correctly; a bilge rat is still a bilge rat, and no amount of fancy clothes can a captain make.

If anything burns him more than that knowledge, he doesn’t know what it is.

An echo of boots rings down from the stone stairs, and Reggie glances up just as Luke nearly runs right past him.

Luke’s ponytail might be a close second for things annoying him today, though.

The man himself backtracks and hooks his fingers around the bars, beaming. Reggie can’t help returning his grin. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the upstanding citizen of Port Royal what got me locked up,” he says, tilting his head.

Luke rolls his eyes. “Don’t be like that Reg. You know I couldn’t just let you waltz through town with that brand on your arm. The town would talk if I had.”

Reggie tucks his arms behind his head and closes his eyes. “Ah yes. Can’t have the beloved blacksmith’s reputation besmirched by his own past, can we?” He’s teasing, and Luke knows it.

“We need to get you out of here. Those two cotton-brained pirates of ours took Jul- _Miss Molina_ last night.”

Reggie cracks one eye open.“I was wondering why you were still here. Was worried I was about to miss out on the whole adventure.”

Luke runs his hands over the cell door. “I helped build these; I think if I can get the right leverage, I can lift the door free-”

“ _Ahem._ ”

They both still, Luke staring at him through the bars with wide wide eyes. Reggie wants to slam his head against the floor; they can’t have been caught _already_ , they’d barely even begun.

There’s a man standing behind Luke, in the deep scarlet uniform of a military man. He stands at attention, crisp and perfect, save for one thing.

He’s holding a key.

“Nick,” Luke says, and Reggie can hear the bafflement and terror in his voice.

Nick, the officer, chews his lip. He strides past Luke, and addresses Reggie. In the sunlight pouring in through his tiny barred window, Reggie can see him sweating nervously.

“You saved Miss Molina yesterday. I saw you,” He very nearly stammers, and Reggie wonders if this is his first crime. A momentous occasion; he feels like he should congratulate the man.

“Would you do it again?” Nick asks.

Reggie raises an eyebrow. He gestures to Luke. “That odd little lass I pulled from the ocean is the same bonnie miss Alex took last night?”

Luke rests his forehead against the bars, looking exasperated. “Apparently.”

Reggie sits up, slaps his thighs. “Then I know why your bonnie miss is missing,” he says, climbing to his feet. He flicks his fingers at Nick. “Were you planning on setting me free?”

Nick fumbles with the key, and Luke takes it from him. “Plausible deniability,” he mutters at Nick’s confused look. “You didn’t open the door, you don’t know anything about it.” Luke explains, twisting the key in the lock and stepping back to let Reggie out. “Reg, what do you mean, you know why they took her?”

“I mean, your pretty lady friend has a piece of Aztec gold around her equally pretty throat, and Alex must have followed that. Where’s my hat?”

Nick goes to fetch his effects from a little further down the jail’s seemingly endless and dank hallway as Luke chews on what Reggie’s just said.

“She’s got the medallion.”

“Seems so.”

Luke bites his thumbnail. “I thought I’d lost it the day they pulled me ashore here. She must have taken it then. Why?”

Reggie snorts. “If she’s the same woman who told me to hide from the militia, my best guess is that she’s known this whole time what you are, Luke. She took it to protect you,” he smirks. “She must be as in love with you as you are with her.”

Luke chokes.

“Don’t say that,” he says, coughing.

The scrape of his shiny polished boots announces Nick’s return. He hands Reggie his coat and hat, his face solemn.

“Luke,” he says, his voice low. “Find her. Please.”

And two years hasn't changed the way that Luke's eyes hold the weight of the world in them. Reggie can read him like he can read a map, and right now, what he's witnessing is two men, both so far gone over one Miss Molina that they would risk anything for her, coming to a silent understanding.

Luke nods, and shakes Nick's hand.

Reggie slings his arm around Luke’s shoulders, and Luke leans into him, just like he used to; like he's relieved not to carry his burdens alone anymore.

Familiar like a favorite old coat, Reggie thinks, something wound too tight in his own chest all this time finally untwisting, just a bit.

~

Being in the brig is so much worse when she’s alone.

The ship rocks with the ocean, creaking and settling and damp with salty stale water. Julie leans against the bars, and waits.

Willie returns first, a neatly folded pair of breeches under his arm. He gives them to her through the bars, and then politely turns his back as she pulls them on under her nightgown. They’re too big, and patched several times, but they’re much sturdier than what she has on. Willie has even managed to find her a nice piece of thick twine to use for a belt.

Willie picks at the support beam he’s leaning against with disinterest. “Alex told you, didn’t he?”

Julie startles, her fingers slipping as she tries to tie a secure knot in the twine. “Told me what?”

“That I don’t have a soul.”

She swallows. “He mentioned it, yes. Frankly, I was a little more distracted by the whole…”

She still can’t say it.

“Skeleton thing?”

“Yes.”

He sighs, and glances back to silently ask if she’s decent. When she nods, he turns around entirely. “I might have lost my soul, but he’s losing himself to protect me,” he murmurs, scrubbing at his face. “Day by day, his humanity is slipping away.”

Julie tilts her head; it’s a good thing she doesn’t mind listening to either of them, because both of them seem to need a sympathetic ear. And she makes for a literally captive audience.

But she likes them, and if they’re friends of Luke’s then she can’t imagine why they couldn’t be friends of hers as well.

And the more she listens to them talk, the less chance she has of having to speak herself, and trip up on her own lie. The very idea of what she’s done sets her heart racing in her chest, and every time they address her as _Mrs. Patterson_ , it skips a beat. 

She’s sure she shouldn’t be enjoying the way it sounds so much.

So yes, Julie will gladly listen to Alex and Willie talk her ear off if it keeps her own mouth from betraying her.

“He’s fighting to hold onto it, I know he is,” he says, tugging on the ends of his hair. “The way he touches my face when he thinks I’m asleep. He’s holding on so tightly to the things he can see. But he’s forgetting the rest; the way emotions work, I think.”

Boots tromp down the steps and Willie quiets. Julie worries for a moment before spotting the blonde mop of hair that’s quickly becoming familiar to her. Alex gives her a little smile, both his arms occupied by whatever it is that he managed to fetch for her.

“You’ll have to make do with one of my shirts. No one else was willing to sacrifice one for a lady,” he says, rolling his eyes as he sets down a pair of boots. He untucks the aforementioned shirt from under his arm.

"It was red once, but the sun tends to take care of that." Alex offers her the pink bundle through the bars.

Julie holds the shirt out by its shoulders, and notes that she's holding it backwards when a mass of folded fabric swoops over the neckline. She inspects it closely, realizing by the stitching and the different shade that it's been added much later, after the shirt was originally completed.

"Is there a hood on this?" She asks, fingering the slapdash stitches.

Alex nods, smiling softly. "Before I was like this, my ears used to get cold on deck. Willie made a hood for me."

Willie drops his head to his hands. "The stitchwork is pitiful, I still can't understand why you actually _wore that_ -"

"Because you made it for me." Alex says simply.

They both turn to give her some privacy to pull the shirt over her head and discard her nightgown, but not before Julie notices the pleased pink tint flushed across Willie’s face. She smiles to herself as she tucks the hem of the shirt into the pants.

“You found me some boots?” she says, to let them know that it’s alright to turn back around. Alex nods, and passes them to her one by one.

“They’re an old pair of Reggie’s,” he says, and she doesn’t know who Reggie is, but she hopes that his boots fit her feet. Her silken slippers have been completely ruined, and she feels a little bit silly standing in her stockings and ruined houseshoes. She kicks them off eagerly and tugs on the scuffed black boots.

They’re big in the toe, but she’s grateful to have anything on her feet that isn’t damp silk. She tucks the breeches into the tops of the boots and straightens up. “Well?”

“You look like a pirate,” Alex says. “Luke will kill me for it when he sees.” But he says it fondly, and Julie hopes in her heart that they’re not all pinning their aims on a man who won’t bother to show up.

She likes to think he would try to rescue her, wife or not.

Especially because she _isn’t_ his wife, and she’s got no other choice than to hope and hope and hope he’ll show up anyway.

Her hair has tangled into wild curls during her time in the cell, and she tugs at it with a wince. “Can you find me something to tie this up with?” she asks, and she hates that she has to, because they’ve already been so good to her, despite getting her into this mess in the first place.

Alex looks at Willie. “Do you still have cords for your hair in your old bunk?” he asks. Willie nods. “I’ll get them,” Alex says, starting for the deck again.

He pauses.

And almost like an afterthought, Alex turns and presses a chaste kiss to Willie’s mouth. Willie squeaks with surprise and Julie fights a smile as Alex spins on his heel and continues his way to the deck.

She can see the tremors wracking through Willie’s arms as he presses his fingertips to his lips, where Alex had just been.

She's startled to see the shine of tears brimming in Willie’s eyes.

Julie reaches for him through the bars and grips his sleeve. "What's wrong?"

Willie sniffs.

"He hasn't kissed me in months," he breathes.

~

Luke chews the inside of his cheek.

“Reginald?” he asks, watching the royal navy discover that their rudder chains on the _Dauntless_ have been disabled and they won’t be able to pursue the two pirates that have just stolen their precious _Interceptor._

It was very nice of Nick to mention that both ships would be setting sail that very afternoon, tossed so cavalierly over his shoulder like he was just making pleasant conversation with two men who _weren’t_ fugitives from justice. Luke has to wonder exactly what power it is that Julie has over them all this way, to make an officer turn treasonous so quickly.

She’s quite a woman, that Miss Molina. And Luke would give anything to see her safe again.

“Hmm?”

“How long were you on that island?”

Reggie looks at him.

Looks at that bizarre compass of his.

Looks out at the horizon with a funny little smile on his face.

And looks back at Luke with a gleam in his eye that’s had Luke’s teeth on edge ever since he noticed it.

“Just four days. Why?”

Luke swallows, and thinks of the fact that Reggie has been mumbling to himself for the past five minutes, and has not seemed to notice that he’s been doing it.

“No reason.” he lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next stop; _tortuga_
> 
> wherein we will meet a whole new slew of familiar faces :)
> 
> _cominte?_


	7. Chapter 7

Luke knows he’s dreaming.

_lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green_

But that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy the memory.

It’s the softest mattress he’s ever slept on, and he’s got a proper blanket for the first time in ages.

_if you are king, dilly dilly, i'll be your queen_

And an angel at his bedside.

He remembers waking up in that bed, sunlight unrelentingly bright against his face that first morning, to see Julie Molina in a hardbacked chair, a book dangling from her fingertips as she breathed the deep breaths that came with overwhelmingly exhausted slumber, her head tilted at a painful angle.

_lavender’s green, dilly dilly, lavender's blue_

He's never seen anyone so beautiful before, or since.

_if you love me, dilly dilly, i will love you_

“Luke? Wake up, I need a hand-”

“I’m awake.”

He uncrosses his arms and rolls his neck, the muscle stiff from where his chin had dipped towards his chest as he dozed. The sunlight is just as bright as it had been in his memory as he squints against the rays. The swaying and rocking of the _Interceptor_ had lulled him into drowsiness as he lay against the supply bags on the deck. Reggie looks down at him, an amused smile on his face as he holds out a hand to pull Luke back to his feet.

Julie’s voice haunts his mind.

That absent humming that had drawn him time and time again from his feverish dreams, her sweet voice calling him back before he could slip into the blackest part of subconsciousness, that last precipice with death at the bottom of it.

Luke hears it now like she’s standing next to him on this swaying deck.

Off in the distance, Tortuga looms ever closer.

~

 _Sweets Tavern_ is just as run down as it’s always been, Luke thinks, staring up at the sign, a little more grungy now than it had been the last time he was here.

Behind him, the lawlessness of Tortuga rages in the street, and he hopes that the pistol shot he just heard wasn’t aimed in their direction. Reggie claps a hand on his back.

“Home sweet home, huh?” he asks, irony in his voice but Luke knows that he means it.

“Hmm. Right,” he says, thinking of dark curls and a laugh he never could shake.

Tortuga being the last free port left in the water made it a target for the lowest caliber of pirate, in Luke’s opinion. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the two years he spent in other company, or if he’s finally being honest with himself about how much he disliked the place all along.

But for Reggie, Tortuga is where he thrives. Or at least, it’s where he isn’t on edge. That hasn’t changed in their time apart; Luke had noted the almost imperceptible change in Reggie’s demeanor the second they’d made port.

It worries him now more than it ever did before.

Reggie pushes open the splintered door with a flourish and gestures for Luke to go ahead of him. He does so, and steps into the familiar darkness of the bar, with a familiar voice calling out immediately to him.

“Well as I live and breathe, Lucas Patterson has sought fit to grace us with himself.”

Robert Wilson leans with his elbows on the bartop, and grins. Luke can’t help returning it as he crosses the floor to meet him there.

“It’s good to see you, Bobby.” he says honestly. Bobby flicks his hair out of his eyes, and returns to cleaning out the stein he’s been attempting to scour of old ale.

“Not half so good as it is to see you,” he says, setting down his rag. “Most of us thought you were dead.”

“I knew he wasn’t _dead_.” Reggie says, pulling up to the bar next to Luke. “How’s business, Bobby?”

“Better, now you aren’t scaring off my customers with that mug of yours,” Bobby says, reaching out to straighten Reggie’s collar. “You’re a mess. Luke let you walk around like that?”

“Couldn’t stop him if I tried,” Luke rolls his eyes. “How’s that sister of yours?”

His sister. The only thing that had saved him from the fallout of the _Sunset’s Curve_. Luke hates to think it, but Bobby’s father’s illness and his subsequent need to return home and provide for his sister was starting to feel like an intervention of some higher power, saving him from the same fate as himself, and worse yet, Reggie or Alex.

He misses Alex.

He misses the Reggie he’d known.

“Got herself a gal, is how she is.” Bobby says with an eyeroll of his own. “I haven’t known peace since.”

“Ol’ Cannonball Carrie’s gotten attached?” Reggie says, surprised. Luke can’t say he doesn’t agree with the sentiment; last he’d known of Carrie Wilson, she’d had a face carved from marble and a heart of stone to match. Her own words, not his.

“Don’t call her that,” Bobby says lightly, using the rag to mop at a spot on the bar. “Her gal doesn’t like it.”

Reggie blinks. “What, Cannonball? Carrie always liked Cannonball, because she’d destroy your life-”

And Reggie goes down fast, with an _oof_ and a thud that shakes the bar. There’s threatening muttering and Reggie’s boots scrabbling for purchase against the filthy floorboards and Luke feels like he might need to jump in in a second, but this woman is _tiny_ and somehow she’s got her arm all the way around Reggie’s throat-

“-disrespectful as _hell_ -”

And he knows this woman.

“Miss Flynn?”

She looks up, her braids hitting Reggie in the face. “ _Patterson?_ ”

“What is going _on_?” comes Carrie’s voice, her footsteps thundering down the stairs. She swings around the corner, her skirts rustling as she stops short at the sight before her. Bobby gestures towards the whole scene with a shrug and Carrie’s eyes grow wider. “Reg? _Luke_?” she pauses. “Flynn, dear, let him up.”

“He called you-”

“He’s _allowed_ to say it.”

The look on Flynn’s face says that she doesn’t care one way or another for Reggie’s special exception, and she shoves him as she climbs to her feet, brushing dirt off her skirt. Luke eyes her warily.

“I think we need to have a conversation.” he says. Flynn gives him a stiff nod.

~

The wooden table is scarred and splintered and stained, too many years of ale and rum spilt on it without care, knives dug into the grain for threats and games alike. Luke rests his forearms against it, steepling his fingers as he gives the woman across from him a level look.

Flynn meets his gaze steadily.

Reggie’s eyes dart between them, nerves coming through in the way that he bounces his leg, and for one shining moment, Luke sees the boy he trusts with his life in Reggie’s expression.

“So,” Luke says conversationally. “You went off chasing pirates-”

Flynn purses her lips, and tilts her head. Something about the way she holds herself has every one of Luke’s instincts flaring off a danger warning, but he’s got a low burning anger in his chest that won’t listen to instinct.

“-when Julie needed you.” he finishes.

“There it is,” Flynn mutters, her arms crossed. “And since when is it _Julie_ to you, blacksmith?”

Luke snorts, and doesn’t answer. 

She leans forward on the table. “Not that I owe you an answer, but Julie _told_ me to go,” she swallows, and Luke is startled by the sudden vulnerability in her eyes. “She found out about Carrie. And she told me to chase her,” those hurt eyes start to glisten, and Luke regrets his harsh tone as his stomach sinks. “You don’t think I regret _every day_ that my best friend was still grieving and I _left her?_ ” she sniffs, and looks away angrily.

Reggie hands her a handkerchief from the depths of his coat. Flynn takes it, and Luke will call that a truce between the pair of them. It doesn’t do much for the way he’s just crumbled his own tentative old friendship with her.

Flynn dabs at her eyes, and looks like she mostly hates that she’s shown weakness in front of them. “When I met Carrie, she was in town on business. Imagine my heartbreak when I found out that business was a little less legal than I initially believed,” she says, her voice far away. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Julie promised she’d be fine.”

And Luke thinks about the pair of them he’d known in Port Royal, giggling at him, arm in arm behind their fans, Flynn’s well earned reputation for a sharp tongue and quick wit sending him friendly barbs as Julie would playfully reprimand her, reminding her that he was still a recovering shipwreck victim, and would she please show some compassion?

This woman, with her hair down and the hem of her simple skirt dirty with dust, a filthy apron from tending the tables tied around her waist, is a far cry from the carefully made up flower that he knew.

And he doesn’t think she’d ever looked so free when he had.

“Did you believe her?”

A tear crawls down Flynn’s cheek. She wipes it away hastily. “No.” she says.

Bobby interrupts the somber moment, setting a bowl of sorry-looking stew in front of Reggie. He waves off the silver piece that Reggie tries to hand to him as he sits down. Reggie makes an annoyed face, and calls out across the room for Carrie’s attention.

“Carrie,” Reggie waves the silver in the air to pay her instead. There’s an odd noise, and Luke flinches as something small and furry swings down from the darkness of the rafters and snatches the coin from his hand. Reggie yanks his hand back towards himself, startled.

Neither Flynn nor Bobby so much as blink as a white faced monkey scurries up to Carrie’s shoulder. She takes the coin from its grippy little fingers as Reggie and Luke both gape.

“Thank you, Reggie,” she says, tucking the silver into the purse she’s always kept tied around her waist. Reggie looks gobsmacked.

“You’re welcome?” he says, his eyes still wide as the little monkey scampers back down to the bartop.

“Oh, not you,” Bobby says with a wry little grin playing around his mouth. “She named the monkey Reggie.”

A wide smile breaks across Reggie’s face, and he’s on his feet in a second, his stew forgotten. “Really?” he asks, delighted. He makes his way over to the bar and the monkey, and Luke knows he’s going to be distracted for the rest of the evening.

“I don’t think that’s the insult she thinks it is,” he says, pulling the bowl of stew towards himself.

Flynn snorts. “Insult? She missed him.” Her chair makes a horrible scratching noise against the floor as she gets to her feet, and follows Reggie. 

The look on Bobby’s face as he watches Carrie introduce Reggie to his namesake is so fond that Luke almost wants to look away. “We both missed him,” Bobby corrects.

Luke watches as Flynn wraps her arms around Carrie’s waist from behind, and while he can’t help but be happy for her now, he wishes that it hadn’t come at the expense of her lifelong friendship with Julie. He hopes that she’ll come with them once they explain exactly what’s happened.

He wants Julie to have Flynn back, the same way he’s just finally got Reggie back himself.

Or.

Some of him, anyway.

The way Reggie’s cooing over that monkey, the way he smiles, he’s _almost_ right, almost the Reggie Luke knows.

But there’s something else in there with him now, too. Something dark that planted itself the second they’d marooned him on that island.

Luke swallows.

“Bobby,” he says, voice low. “What happened to him?”

And his old friend’s face falls. “Luke…” he chews his thumbnail, and glances towards the three people laughing so merrily across the room. “The smuggler ship picked him up after about four days, just like you knew they would,”

“But?” Luke prompts, his heart sinking.

Downtrodden, heartbroken eyes meet his. “But...four days in the scorching heat, with hardly any water? I think he started to believe he’d really die there, Luke.”

Bobby traces a finger against the tabletop, picking at a sharp splinter that needs sanded down. “He wasn’t right, when he got back. Talking to things, arguing with people who weren’t there. He talked to Alex a lot, and you. We took him in, and he’s better now, but-”

He chews his lip, like he isn’t sure he wants to say it out loud. “For the longest time, we thought he was talking to ghosts.”

~

Julie’s stomach growls and she fights the urge to shush it. Being in the brig is bad, being alone is worse, and showing weakness while being alone in the brig? The worst possible scenario.

She fiddles with the sleeve of her borrowed shirt, and tightens the cord holding up her hair.

Hard to imagine that just two days ago she’d been leading a much less grimy existence, she thinks wryly. It's too quiet down in the dank; the only sounds are her stomach, the creaking of the ship, and her own humming.

“... _lavender’s blue, dilly dilly-_ ”

“- _lavender’s green_ -” Willie’s voice sings along with her, and Julie jumps, turning around in her cage. He smiles apologetically. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Famished,” she confesses.

He holds out what appears to be half a loaf of crusty bread through the bars, and looks embarrassed about it. “It’s all I could take without drawing attention. I thought there were apples, too, but they must be gone.”

Julie takes it gratefully. After two days, anything would look like a feast to her. She leans against the bars, and rips into it with her fingers, popping chunks slowly into her mouth so that she doesn’t tear into it with her teeth the way she truly wants to. Eating like an animal would only make her empty stomach upset, and she refuses to do anything that could make Caleb’s task of tormenting her easier.

At the very least, she can have some company again. “Where’s Alex?” she wonders aloud.

Willie leans against the other side of the bars, his arms crossed. “Trying to sleep. He can’t, not really. But he likes to try.” the pain written across his face makes her stomach twist.

“Of course he can’t sleep; you aren’t with him.” she says, aiming for a bit of jocularity. Willie gives her a startled look. “You share one of the crew hammocks, don’t you? He said your _old_ bunk when he went to get me some hair cords.”

His face flushes an embarrassed pink, and Julie grins around her mouthful of stale bread. _Kidnapped_ she might be. _Lying_ , she might also be. _Entertained_ is at least what she deserves on this little hostage adventure.

He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, it’s like a chill passes over him. The air feels like it’s been sucked from the room, and even the single burning oil lamp hanging from the post feels like it’s dimmed.

“Oh, my dear William,” says Caleb, stepping from the shadows. His smile makes Julie’s flesh crawl. “I think we can do so much better for our guest than a lump of old bread, don’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicated to everyone who asked if i was including the monkey


	8. Chapter 8

The eyes of the crew are sharp and hateful against her back as Covington leads the way to his personal quarters. Julie’s heart is in her throat.

But she has on Alex’s borrowed shirt, and Willie’s hair cords tying her curls back, and she will not show fear. Not here. Not in front of this crew of the damned.

The look on Willie’s face as Covington unlocked her cage, as he was forced to step back and avert his gaze as Caleb threw him a cutting look the second he even opened his mouth, and the sudden deadness in his eyes is haunting her, even as Caleb oh-so-grandly gestures her forward with a flourish.

She keeps her chin high, and hopes that her crossed arms hide her trembling hands.

It crosses her mind that not a single one of the crew melts into skeletons in the moonlight the way that Covington and Alex do, and for some reason that makes everything so much worse.

Who were these people, to so willingly work for such a cruel man, if they were unburdened by the same curse as he was?

Was that why not one of them stopped to help Alex, when Willie’s blinding tears and angry sobs got in the way of him trying to extract the bosun’s sword the night before last? She tries to think back, to remember if any of these people have been even the slightest bit interested in her wellbeing, or in Alex’s since she’s stepped aboard.

She comes up empty, and wonders if it comes down to jealousy over Alex’s condition.

Who would want that for themselves, who would choose such a fate willingly?

Covington slips through a patch of silver moonlight, and Julie shudders, her question answered as his grinning skull looks back at her, smug.

The captain’s quarters looms, and he opens the door for her. She can see the places where he’s made himself at home, like a rat in a nest of straw; he does not belong here, and it shows in the places he’s tried to hide.

There’s a cot to the side, cold and empty, and by the remnants of things left beneath it, she guesses that it once belonged to Willie; a raggedy red bandana, a few broken strips of leather hide he’d probably kept for his own hair once.

But she can see places where someone else once stood; a chest of drawers shoved into the corner, old, holey shirts that speak of work spilling out, several books tossed into a corner, their pages splayed and their spines bent, a sorry-looking violin with its strings cut, landed where it was thrown whoever knew how long ago-

And a dining table heaped high with a feast, the likes of which she doesn’t think she’s seen since last Christmas.

Hatred broils in her stomach, along with hunger.

This man is a rotten kind, and she loathes him down to her bones.

He gestures for her to sit, pulling the chair out for her. Julie does so, her face still up defiantly.

There’s mutton in front of her, and it’s still hot. The smell of warm food is making her dizzy, and the few mouthfuls of dry bread she’d managed before being brought here are starting to revolt in her gut.

She wants to reach for the apples so badly she can almost taste them, but she won’t.

She _won’t._

Julie refuses to give him the satisfaction, glaring steadily at him as he sits down at the table, directly across from her.

“Mrs. Patterson,” he says, and she _hates_ the way it sounds from him. “I’ve had all this food prepared. The least you could do is pretend to appreciate the gesture.”

Oh, the _least_ she could do, is that right? What an arrogant prick-

“I assure you, if I were going to kill you, I would have done so by now. I need you alive, or my dear little Lucas might be a bit more _dramatic_ about your death than I would rather deal with, you see.”

Julie raises a single eyebrow, and Covington sighs theatrically.

“If you would like to starve in your lonely little cage, I suppose that’s your right,” he says, picking at some invisible speck on his sleeve. “Though I’m sure my crew would be just a tad resentful of all this food going overboard because our guest was too ungrateful to eat it,” his eyes glint dangerously. “And when the crew get resentful, they do tend to take it out on the people who can _take it,_ so to speak.”

_Alex._

He means Alex, tossing and turning alone in his hammock, unable to die but a lightning rod for pain.

Julie grits her teeth, and takes from the plate of mutton.

Covington gives her a satisfied look, and she chews like she can grind him to dust with her teeth from here.

“I’m glad you could see it my way, Mrs. Patterson.” he says, steepling his fingers like some twisted mockery of prayer.

She swallows, and pretends like her entire being doesn’t immediately feel better at the advent of food. She will _not_ be grateful to this man. Absolutely not, in any way, shape, or form will she be thankful to be fed. She is not some street dog, begging for scraps from pitying hearts.

This is her own reward to herself for being strong, that is all.

Julie bites into an apple and lets the tart juice sit on her tongue, grounding her. The oil lamps burn at their posts, illuminating the wine in her goblet like glass, like a mirror. She can see herself reflected in it, the hardness in her eyes, the cool defiance in her gaze.

She looks nothing like herself, and that sits heavily in her belly like lead.

“Captain Covington,” she says, her nerves steeled as best she can. “You’re placing a great deal of trust in the idea that Luke will come to rescue me, in spite of your little _bargain,_ whatever that may be,” she adds with a mutter. “How are you certain that this isn’t a fool’s errand for you?”

He smiles, something ancient in his eyes. “My dear, I know Luke. He’s never done anything without his whole heart in his life. And if you’re his whole heart now, well,” he gestures at her grandly. “Then he won’t be doing much without you, will he?”

Julie swallows.

She isn’t Luke’s whole heart.

God help her, she isn’t even half his heart, nor a quarter, nor an eighth.

She takes another bite of mutton, though it tastes like ash in her mouth now. Dabbing delicately at her mouth with her napkin, and then reaching down to adjust the top of her boot nonchalantly, she asks as blandly as she can, “And why are you so interested in forcing Luke into your immortality game, anyway? From what I can see, you have a ship full of people ready and willing to risk everything for it themselves. Why Luke? Why Alex?”

_Why not Willie?_

Caleb waves off her question airily. “You’re fishing for answers, Mrs. Patterson,” he says, grinning like a wolf, ready to pick its teeth with her bones. “I respect that.” He rises, a horrible shriek of his chair legs against the swaying floor.

“Have you heard of the ferryman, my dear?”

Julie sets down her fork. “Those who shuttle the souls of the dead to the afterlife,” she murmurs, recalling a book she’d read many, many years ago. “For a price,”

Covington snaps his fingers, his other hand supporting him on the table as he leans in. “Exactly. For a price. And I thought, well, this job isn’t the most _efficient_ way of going about this, I could make it _better_.”

He pauses, lets her take that in.

“And I did.”

Julie stares blankly at her plate, her stomach roiling. “Willie isn’t the only soulless being on this ship, is he?” she asks, her heart sinking.

“No, my dear,” he says lightly, sitting back down. “I’m afraid that the only ones still in possession of their soul on this vessel are you, and Mr. Mercer.”

She takes a stuttering breath, hoping ridiculously that he can’t hear the way her heart is pounding from across the room. “You’re using this ship as your ferry. And you’ve tricked everyone onboard into giving up their soul to you. Why?”

His eyes flash. “Tricked? You wound me, Mrs. Patterson. No, everyone on this ship gave me their soul, freely and willingly. In exchange, I offer them salvation.”

He points towards the door, towards where she knows the crew works outside. “Every one of those people was already dead when I found them. Or, nearly dead,” he amends. “I offer them a choice, Mrs. Patterson. Work for me, and live as long as I do, or perish in a broken body like common filth.”

“And Willie?” she asks, because she can’t _not_ , not when she knows that he’s some sort of sick _thing_ to Caleb, with his old cot and the attention the captain pays to him.

To her great surprise, regret flickers across Covington’s face. “William was a _mistake_ , one that I am done trying to rectify. Neither dead nor dying, he made that choice anyway. He lives with the consequences of his own loneliness.”

“And what of _your_ own loneliness?” she asks, trying not to inject the venom she wants into the words. “Is that not why you want an immortal crew with you? To stave off your own boredom from being surrounded by the soulless husks you’ve created yourself?”

And Caleb barks a laugh.

“Of course not,” he says. “I’m sure Mr. Mercer already told you about that little chest of gold. Put the coin back, repay the blood owed to the chest, break the curse. Simple, yes?” Caleb shakes his head at his own question, dragging a finger across the table like he’s checking it for dust. “Not quite. You see, _every_ coin stolen must be returned before that curse may break.”

 _ah._ she thinks. He wants as many coins out of the chest as possible, so there’s less chance of his curse being broken. _God in heaven, who would_ **want** _to live a life like that?_

There’s a long silence as they both digest what he’s just said.

And she’s forced to wonder if he hasn’t given up much more than he planned, if the look on his face is anything to go by.

Some men couldn’t resist a boastful monologue; she’d learned that over and over again attending functions with her father, and she has to admit this is the first time her particular needling has come in useful.

Julie meets his eyes steadily, and dares him silently to react.

He straightens out a cuff of that ridiculous indigo shirt, and moves to stand once more. “Mrs. Patterson,” he says, towering over her like a bird of prey about to swoop. “If you’ve quite eaten your fill, I do believe that there’s a cell, -and two of my crew, I’d assume- eagerly awaiting your return this evening.”

Julie stands, the table knife she’d slipped into her boot heavy against her calf.

~

They set sail with the tide.

Carrie and Bobby take them to the docks. Bobby has pulled every remaining favor he has on the island, and scrounged up a suitable crew for them. They’re not the most honest of men, but they’ll do, Luke thinks.

Flynn had needed no prompting once she was informed of the situation, turning tail immediately to fetch her breeches and borrow an old shirt of Bobby’s. She stands with her hands on Carrie’s waist, Carrie’s whispers carrying on the sea breeze, asking Flynn to come back to her, no matter what. Luke’s heart breaks for them, and he wishes for a different lifetime, one in which Cannonball Carrie was just Carrie Wilson, and the Lady Flynn was still at Julie’s side, and neither would have to worry about stray gunfire or cannonblasts ruining what they’ve found on this godforsaken world.

Bobby’s arm is slung around Reggie’s shoulders, where it’s been since they’d left the bar. He presses his temple to Reggie’s, their dark hair blending together like ink.

“Come back this time,” Bobby says, and Luke’s heart breaks all over again as Reggie smiles, turns his head and kisses Bobby’s brow. Luke had thought he’d missed something important, and it’s starting to feel like it’d been this.

“Always do,” Reggie says, and anyone else would have missed the waver in his voice, but _anyone else_ wasn’t on the dock with them, and they all hear it.

Luke takes a breath, the salty ocean air in his lungs, and turns to face the sea, to what is starting to feel like _towards their deaths_.

Towards Julie.

~

Alone in the brig, arms wrapped around his knees, tears drip off Willie's chin as he waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhhh my god writing julie and caleb should not have been fun _and yet_
> 
> comment?


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